The Problem:
Less than 11 per cent of Canada’s plastics get recycled. The rest end up in our landfills, lakes, parks and oceans, destroying ecosystems and leaching toxic chemicals.
We can’t rely on businesses to “do the right thing” voluntarily, so long as making new plastic from fossil resources is cheap, the cost of collecting and recycling plastic is high, and dumping plastic into the environment is “free”.
The Solution:
Canada needs strong, standardized rules from coast-to-coast. We are asking the federal government to create a national plastics strategy that gets us to a plastic-free environment by 2025. We need to ban plastics that are toxic or hard to recycle, stop companies from making single-use plastics from virgin fossil resources, and make the big producers responsible for cleaning up their own plastic mess.
Learn More:
We joined with over 40 other Canadian environmental and civil society groups to create the Towards a Zero Plastic Waste Future Declaration. The Declaration sets out a roadmap for how Canada can achieve a plastic waste free future by 2025.
Read the plastics declaration in English, or in French.
Read the Report:
In October 2018 we released the Talking Trash: Canada’s Plastic Pollution Problem report. The report outlined the current global and national plastic issue, and called on Canada to create a national waste strategy that builds a circular economy and achieves zero plastic waste by 2025.
What you can do:
Here are a few actions that you can take to help us stop plastic pollution entering Canada’s environment:
1. Take Action
Tell Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Minister Catherine McKenna, that you want a plastic-free environment by 2025.
2. Watch and share our video
Canada has a plastic pollution problem – here’s what we should do about it.
Use the share button in the top corner of the video to share online, and hashtag it #ZeroPlasticWaste!
3. GO PLASTIC-FREE
Reduce your own plastic consumption by using a refillable water bottle, refusing plastic straws and bags, or avoiding products with excessive packaging.
4. Join Our Community
Sign up for our water newsletter to receive the latest updates and to learn more about how you can help reduce plastic pollution.